A bipartisan amendment that would ban mink farming for fur production in the U.S. passed the House of Representatives 262-168, as the House was working its way through hundreds of amendments to the America Competes Act. The amendment, co-sponsored by Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Nancy Mace, R-S.C., amends the Lacey Act. It was changed from the original language, which spoke specifically of ending import and export of Neovison vison, the species known as American minks. The new version bans the sale, possession, acquisition, purchase or transport of the species, if it was raised in captivity for fur production. If this section of the bill survives the conference committee process with the Senate, it would take effect Dec. 31.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., announced he is introducing a bill that would make U.S. companies liable for statements "that excuse the genocide in Xinjiang" or other statements that advance Chinese propaganda efforts, and would make it illegal to invest in core Chinese Communist Party activities. He says these actions would be subject to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, unless companies could explain that their actions were not made to gain or retain market access. Traditionally, the FCPA has been used to prosecute the offering of bribes by U.S. persons or firms in foreign countries.
Members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China are asking appropriators in the House and Senate to dedicate more than the $9 million or $10 million currently slated to strengthen CBP enforcement of the ban on imports of goods made with forced labor. "Given the subsequent enactment of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and the request by the Biden Administration for additional resources to implement it, we respectfully request that the conference report on the FY2022 bill include an even greater amount for forced labor enforcement," they wrote Feb. 2. Congress has not yet passed bills to fund the government for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, 2021, but appropriators are trying to reach agreement by Feb. 18 on the rest of the fiscal year's funding levels.
Sandler Travis managing principal Nicole Bivens Collinson said that Sandler Travis is working with companies to develop comments to the federal government on how to implement the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (see 2201210031) because a lot of companies don't want their names on their comments. "We are creating an ad hoc coalition because I know a lot of companies don't want to go on record," partly "because they may be a global operation that has operations in China," she said, while speaking on a recent webinar hosted by the firm. China prohibits companies from adhering to foreign laws that negatively impact the country.
The Americans for Free Trade coalition, which would like the Section 301 tariffs removed entirely, said Congress must act to spur the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to institute a broad exclusion process for the China tariffs. The group sent a letter to the House speaker and minority leader asking that two amendments on an exclusion process be allowed a vote, and they said they encourage members to vote for the amendments.
Foreign-trade zones would continue to lose out to foreign distribution companies under the changes to de minimis proposed in The Import Security and Fairness Act, the National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones said in a recent letter to House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who introduced the bill (see 2201180053). A version of that bill, which would no longer end de minimis treatment for goods subject to Section 232 tariffs, among other changes, was included in the America Competes Act (see 2201260029). While NAFTZ sent its letter before the bill was attached to America Competes, "we don’t support either version because neither allows U.S. companies operating in a U.S. FTZ the same ability to leverage Section 321 de minimus as their foreign competitors can and will still be able to do with the current language of the bill," emailed Melissa Irmen, NAFTZ's chair.
Thirteen groups that represent business interests told House leaders that they strongly oppose the changes to de minimis in the trade title of the America Competes Act, the House answer to the Senate China bill that passed last year.
The AFL-CIO said the House version of the China package "includes critically important fixes" to the Senate's trade title, including removing finished products from the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, changes to antidumping and countervailing duty law, and the change to de minimis, which "would halt China’s exploitation of US de minimis policy."
Two bills that aim to fight the sale of counterfeit goods through e-commerce have been included in the House China package, something House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had called for last year (see 2112150050). While neither was included in the Senate China package, the inclusion of the Integrity, Notification, and Fairness in Online Retail Marketplaces for Consumers Act, known as the Inform Consumers Act, and the Stopping Harmful Offers on Platforms by Screening Against Fakes in E-commerce Act, or Shop Safe Act, in the America Competes Act gives them a reasonable chance of becoming law through the bicameral compromise.
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said he and colleagues Reps. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., and Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., "are alarmed by reports of continued harassment, intimidation, and violence against independent union activists in the General Motors’ (GM) auto plant in Silao, Mexico leading up to next week’s union election." The congressmen noted that a previous vote in Silao was overturned through consultations under USMCA's rapid response mechanism, and they say that unless GM and Mexican officials immediately act, the agreement to rerun the election could be pointless.